We’ve had a rather enjoyable club trip away during the winter.  A chance to escape the grey, wet and cold and get a bit of sunshine. It helped that the trip was planned as part of an Advanced Diver exped, as that meant I didn’t actually have to do much to smooth the whole trip along. Our AD candidate had picked a BSAC centre to go diving with, assuming this would mean that our reasonable levels of experience (including First Class Divers and instructors) would be recognised and we would be treated accordingly. The dive plan was submitted by email and when we arrived the owner of the dive centre went to quite some lengths to tell us he was going to follow our plan exactly.

Day 1 wasn’t so bad, apart from a really strange conversation about compasses, and how if you look at your compass and it says 90 degrees then you are in fact swimming West. We tried to explore this assertion, after all it would mean rethinking the entire way we brief for dive sites, skipper boats and well, just generally everything. How could we have all got this far and been 180 degrees out? We asked if this was caused by having a compass with a sighting window, maybe looking at it from the top, but nope.  We were assured that 90 degrees was West. End of discussion, let’s go diving.  We took our own compass bearings on the shore (safe bearing was North). Our check out dive took a strange turn when instead of the 15 metre bimble we’d been briefed for we ended up at a 32 metre wreck. During the surface interval, we were assured that this dive had been in the plan, but even the AD candidate looked puzzled and it was her plan! Whilst on the surface we asked about the time for the second dive. It was a mandatory hour away, but who knows why it’s an hour. A couple of us tried to look at our plan functions to gauge when we’d have enough dive time for the next dive but we were stopped because “decompression is only a theory anyway”. We were doing an hour on the surface and then we’d be going back in.

By the next day, things took another turn for the bizarre. The first dive brief of the day explained that the dive 1 would be out from the harbour and turn right, and the second dive at the same site would be out and turn left. The first dive was pretty good, shoals of fish and a couple of angel sharks. We came back to the shore, had a bite to eat and swapped cylinders. Whilst we were standing in the sun to warm up a bit, someone asked about the topography for the second dive. At this point the story changed, we were told that there was nothing to the left apart from barren rocks, our dive guide couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to turn left, or who had suggested we should and we would be going right again. The second dive to exactly the same site was disappointing.  The tide had changed, the shoals of fish had moved on and we resorted to a little bit of wombling to clean up the reef.

By now we had established that we were becoming the victims of gaslighting. Gaslighting is a form of persistent manipulation and brainwashing that causes the victim to doubt her or himself, and ultimately lose her or his own sense of perception, identity, and self-worth. The term is derived from the 1938 stage play Gas Light, in which a husband tries to convince his wife that she’s insane by causing her to question herself and her reality, flickering the gas lights as he does. Despite having been around for over 75 years, the term has recently resurfaced with Trump’s presidency in the USA.
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We had the classic signs; blatant lies, denial of what had been previously agreed and attempts to manipulate and divide opinion the group. Once we’d identified that this sort of behaviour was in play, everyone’s guard was up. Fortunately, we’ve all know each other for a long time and dived together for many years. Each night our dinner and beer debrief covered very little about the dives and much more about the bizarre antics. The carefully written up dive plan that was the point of the trip had disappeared and was never mentioned again. Next time we’re all going to put our basic qualification and not mention any further diving experience. We think it will be easier all round. 

​At the end of 2016, diver training agencies including BSAC launched Sea Survival training courses developed in conjunction with the RNLI. Despite the common view of the RNLI as being the provision of lifeboats and crew, there is much more that they are involved in from a safety at sea perspective, with particular foci on fishing industry accidents, Swim Safe training courses and safety advice for all water users. It’s astounding how many fishermen don’t wear lifejackets, especially local pot-boat skippers who often work alone.
To try to educate fishermen the RNLI brought a dozen of them from around the UK down to their training base in Poole. All the skippers had previously attended the mandatory Personal Survival Techniques course (and it’s predecessors) which are run in swimming pools around the country. The RNLI trainers asked about lifejackets and got the usual story, the fishermen had them but rarely wore them. The general feedback was that as strong swimmers they were confident that should they fall in the sea, they would be able to swim back to their boat, climb up the tyres on the side and self-rescue. Interestingly, qualified divers and anyone who swam in the sea was excluded from the test group. Repeated attendance at sea survival training had led each fisherman to conclude that their lifejackets weren’t necessary.  The RNLI sought to challenge that belief.
The night before the training course, the trainers opened the doors around the training pool to let out the heat. Overnight the water temperature dropped to 15 degrees.  If you are a diver around the British Isle I am sure there are days where you dream of 15 degree water! At the first attempt the fishermen were asked to wear their normal deck attire and jump in to deep water to simulate falling off their boat. With no life jackets on, the impact of cold water shock was immediate. None of the 12 fishermen lasted longer than 5 minutes before a rescuer intervened. Post dip interviews revealed their shock and surprise at how debilitating the cold water was, definitely nothing like their sea survival training course.
Cold water shock is an immediate short-lived response to immersion in water less than 15 degrees. Blood vessels at the skin contract rapidly, increasing blood pressure and the heart rate. An initial gasp for air can be followed by a breathing rate that is 6-10x higher than normal. It is likely that cold water shock accounts for most deaths when people have unexpectedly entered the water. If you are not wearing flotation during this phase, keeping your head above water becomes the biggest problem.  Over the next 10 minutes, cold incapacitation reduces blood supply to the muscles, making it difficult to swim or self-rescue. A crew member throwing a life ring to you during this time will be frustrated that you can’t actually hold onto it or kick towards the safety of the vessel.
The following day the exercise was repeated but this time with lifejackets being worn. The same cold water shock reaction was initiated, but the fishermen didn’t have to work so hard to keep their airway out of the water, the cold incapacitation stage took longer therefore improving their chances of getting back to the ladder on their boat. You can see the videos from this exercise on the RNLI website.
This started me thinking about why divers were excluded from the test group. I’ve realised I still brace myself for the cold water after decades of diving. OK, I’m wearing a drysuit and the cold water shock reaction is pretty much limited to my head and hands. But how many of us drop beneath the surface in anticipation of that brain freeze moment? As the blood vessels rapidly contract they stimulate the trigeminal nerve sending pain signals to your brain. It hurts for a few moments until you become acclimatised. The fishermen in the RNLI training exercise couldn’t get past that brain freeze feeling.
I think we sometimes underestimate the impact that cold water immersion has on new divers. I can recognise it enough now, but when I think back to learning in a wetsuit I can remember the feeling of panic, rising heart rate and accelerated breathing rate as I used to get into the water. Although we will all recognise increased air consumption by trainee divers, perhaps part of this is their reaction to cold water immersion? I’m sure that with experience comes the anticipation, the forced control of breathing rate for the first few seconds, but until our new divers have developed their response, maybe we should keep a close eye on them for those first couple of minutes? If your trainees are hoofing through their air and their buoyancy is being disrupted by their rapid breathing rate, maybe it’s something to consider?

​Some years ago I craved having a tropical fish tank. I’d had coldwater fish starting with the short-lived goldfish I won at the carnival hoopla stand, but tropical fish seemed like they were more interesting. The big problem is that a fish tank is a bugger of a thing to move and at that time in my life it became a chore and a burden. I relocated 6 times with the fish in bags inside a coolbox, hence it was with some relief that when the last fish died I emptied out the last of the water and put the tank away, promising that when life was a little less hectic I’d get it back out and set it up again. About 6 months later disaster struck when I cracked the glass at one end, but I didn’t get rid of the tank, just planned on repairing it. One of those tasks on my endless to-do list.
And then my goals changed. Stuff the guppies and their frilly tails, why not set up a coldwater marine tank? After all I spend a large amount of my life underwater, why not bring some of the great critters back? Several times a year I visit schools on the Isle of Man and bring a variety of sea creatures in to meet the children and explaining something about their lifecycles. I’ve developed a habit of going and collecting little stuff anyway.
A chance conversation with one of our club members who wanted to rehome one of his tanks, ended up in him loaning me a pump and a chiller unit as well as a fish tank without a crack in the end. At 10am we were having a brew in the dive centre and by 2pm I was stood ankle deep on the slipway filling a cleaned out sofnolime container with seawater. Our marine tank was installed and populated within 24 hours. And if I thought the tropical freshwater tank was hard work, I had another shock coming. Weekly 50 litre seawater changes are just hard work.
I now spend my time thinking about the ecological balance of the tank much more than I ever bothered with guppies. When you keep tropical fish there is loads of info about how many fish per litre of water etc, for British marine life tanks there isn’t the same guidance. A small edible crab was a disaster and massacred poor Kevin the Masked Crab within 24 hours. Kevin had a dodgy past himself, and was often seen amputating limbs from small brittle stars, so he was called Kevin the Killer Crab, but we had grown fond of him and it was sad to see parts of his exoskeleton scattered around the tank.
Our current population includes about 10 hermit crabs, who mainly seem to fight over shells and ignore the rest of the inhabitants. We have two small shore crabs, although one of them is getting a little larger and consequently even hungrier. I’ve a feeling he’ll be heading back to the shore next weekend. We’ve ended up with about 30 North Atlantic Prawns who pounce any food in the tank, and will come to your hand if you put it in. Small Purple Henry starfish, a juvenile scallop, a small common sea urchin, some limpets, Top Shells and Periwinkles complete the scene. We’ve had small fish (they get eaten).
The current star of the show is our Leach’s Spider Crab (Inachis phalangium). Leachy has a small triangular carapace which will reach a maximum of 3cm. I picked him as he ran across a sandy patch between rocks. I’ve seen small spider crabs before, but never really bothered too much about them.  Leachy’s small size made him a target for the tank. After a short trip in an old ice-cream container, he was released in the tank. On the same day, another diver brought in 3 small Snakelocks Anemones.
It turns out that Leach’s Crabs have a commensal relationship with Snakelocks Anemones, the crab benefits but not to the detriment of the anemone. Females stay with their anemone and males will rove around looking for a mate and then return home. They are beautifully camouflaged, with legs covered in sponges and algae. This isn’t by chance, Leach’s Spider Crab actively collects sponges and algae and attaches them to specially shaped spines on their legs and carapace. The sponges are unpalatable and stop predators from attacking the spider crab. The algae form a part of the diet, which also includes food debris from the anemone and the mucus from the tentacles. Our intrepid little Leachy has beautifully evolved to fit into his ecological niche. Admittedly, that’s not meant to be in a dive centre tank, but on the plus side, none of his natural predators are there. We’ve so far avoided large fish or octopus. Periwinkles occasionally find their way out past the pipe work so we’d have no chance of keeping a cephalopod and Leachy is safe for now and I’ve learned a lot more about him.

One of the best things about running a dive centre is the diversity of the clients that walk through the door.  One of the worst things about running a dive centre is the diversity of the clients that walk through the door.  Our centre is multi-agency which means we can honestly offer the most suitable training to each person that comes to us.  We’ve become experts at chatting to prospective divers about their interests, travel plans and diving aspirations and offering them considered and justified advice about their training. 

But when people walk through the door the first thing they will say is “I want to do my PADI.”  The marketing spend and brand awareness for PADI is huge and there’s the common misconception that only a PADI cert will be accepted elsewhere in the world.

Like many experienced divers, I’m entitled to carry a range of cards covering a number of different aspects of diving, but I pick which ones I take on trips with me.  Somewhere in one of my filing cabinets is my set of cards but rarely do they see the light of day.  I once had the misfortune to be on a Red Sea liveaboard with a guy who when asked to prove his diver grade slapped a huge wallet of cards on the table with the classic line “There’s 50 years of diving experience in there. Take your pick.”  It was unnecessarily aggressive and made all the sweeter when, later in the trip, this same guy was the one who surfaced from the night dive to check where the boat was before dropping back to 12m to finish his dive.  Obviously the 50 years of experience didn’t include basic navigation.

In truth, BSAC qualifications generally carry a large amount of kudos.  We train in some really tidal, very murky conditions and our training includes a huge amount of dive and rescue planning that stands us in good stead wherever we pitch up in the world.  On a particularly difficult pick up from the Rosalie Muller in the Red Sea it was our experienced divers who took over recovering the divers from the water, threw out grab lines and carefully timed their assistance with the pitching of the boat.  No shouting.  No fuss.  They just stepped forward and stopped a difficult situation developing into one that would have ended up in the BSAC incident report.

The Isle of Man hosts motorsport events throughout the year, the TT in June, Southern 100 in July and the Manx Grand Prix in August.  These events attract large numbers of foreign visitors carrying a variety of dive qualifications, some stating CMAS equivalence and several requiring translation.  We’ve met and dived with some fantastic divers from around the globe, and we’ve had some very deluded people walk through the door.  My favourite has to be the bloke who walked in and announced in a very heavy Eastern European accent “I vant to dive vith the sharks!”  A little gentle questioning established that he had done a try dive, in a hotel swimming pool in Turkey, about 5 years ago.  We carefully explained how much legal protection covers the basking sharks that come to pup and breed in Manx waters, that they avoid divers, that he wasn’t qualified and no, we couldn’t just hire him some kit.  He left muttering and we breathed a collective sigh of relief.

We run two boats from our dive centre and when necessary have the services of a third boat.  The skipper’s first question when I call him to book a group is to ask “Are they BSAC? That’s OK then.”  He knows he will get divers who, thanks to the strong club system, will turn up as an organised team and just get on with it.  Delayed SMBs aren’t a special course, they’re mainstream.  Nitrox isn’t something just for multiple dives on a liveaboard, but for safety in everyday diving.  And should anyone have any difficulty there will be someone throwing out a grab line and watching the pitch of the boat as they go to assist.
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But of course I’m not claiming BSAC clubs are perfect.  We’ve had the divers who got confused when they ran out of dishwasher tablets and put washing up liquid in the machine instead (Don’t try this at home without a mop and bucket handy).  We’ve had the clubs that plead for discounts, usually for the ‘poor students’ and their trip turns out to be comprised of university staff and post-docs on sizeable bursaries. And we all look forward to hearing about the club politics as the week goes on.

​For a while just before Christmas a couple of years ago, the common description of the Isle of Man as ’80,000 people clinging to a rock in the Irish Sea’ couldn’t have seemed more real.  Our only winter capable ferry managed to ingest some lobster pots cunningly set in the entrance to the harbour, destroying one of the bow thrusters essential for manoeuvring into the tight confines of her berths both here and in the UK.  A period of windy and stormy conditions meant that several sailings were cancelled, the schedule went to the wall and running the Dive Centre during this time was a challenge.  Customer orders couldn’t get through so there were a few ‘I ordered it in plenty of time, but it didn’t arrive yet’ apologies to some of the local divers on Christmas morning.  But in general the poor weather meant there wasn’t much diving going on anyway however the security of supplies should actually be a worry for all divers.  We see it as a challenge to arrange expeditions to remote locations, carrying with us tonnes of equipment, fuel and supplies to dive in some of the lesser known spots.  The planning takes weeks if not months, and part of the satisfaction is diving knowing that you have overcome all the obstacles.  But just think what your diving would be like if that was the level of organisation that you had to run to all the time.

It’s no secret that the current economic climate is hitting leisure industries hard, and that includes dive equipment manufacturers, retail operations, dive training schools and charter businesses.  The whole sector has seen a contraction in spending, and those who depend on it for their living are working harder and longer than ever to keep going.  I spent 2 hours last weekend advising a diver on kit, discussing the relative merits of different options, measuring him for a dry suit and painstakingly working out a competitive price for the choices.  As I slaved over the pricelist and a calculator I saw the dreaded smart phone in his hand and watched in horror as he scanned the barcode and searched for an online price.  Despite the time that I spent, the various configurations that I’d rigged for him to try and the detailed knowledge I provided, he ordered online whilst standing just outside the shop!

It’s a free market and of course he can choose where to buy from.  Some of the big dealers can get much better trade rates than the small guys and rely on high volume of sales to make their money.  However, a word of warning; if the kit was supplied by us, we would happily set it up, take him for an orientation to his new kit in the pool followed by a weight-check dive.  Any warranty issues would rest squarely with us and if we couldn’t sort it out in our workshop, we would happily lend him replacement kit whilst we dealt with the returns process.  These are all little things that we would do as we recognise that the commitment to buying dive kit is a big step, and a little guidance along the way can make a huge difference.  How many new divers buy exactly what someone in their club, usually the loudest person in the bar, told them to get?  And how many change their kit within two years?
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With heavy hearts now we have had to introduce an admin charge to deal with warranty issues for which although we are a dealer but did not supply the item.  If we didn’t make even a small amount of profit selling it, we can’t justify paying the postage to send it off to be repaired.  And if the owner of new kit wants to try it out, then we will be charging him for the pool or open water sessions.  So how much does the odd £20 that he saved really matter?  Obviously to him that mattered a lot, but perhaps now he’s seen the value to the service we provide he’ll reconsider?  The good news is that no-one has yet invented a way to download air via a USB cable, so we’ll be seeing him back in the store real soon.  Have a think about the security of your supply chain for diving.  Local Dive Stores have overheads and may cost a little more, but they will be around to supply your air, provide repairs at short notice, hire kit, give advice and support your purchases.  Your diving activities would be infinitely more difficult if they disappeared.